A former Chechen officer with the Russian special forces was killed on Saturday by police on a street near central Moscow, official sources said.
An interior ministry source told AFP that Movlady Baisarov was killed after trying to resist arrest by police sent from Chechnya to track him down.
"A special group of the interior ministry in Chechnya was sent to Moscow two weeks ago to pursue Movlady Baisarov," the ministry source said under condition of anonymity.
The suspect "saw that they wanted to arrest him and he tried to throw a grenade which did not have time to explode," said Irina Bobinova, an assistant prosecutor in the area where he was killed, on the Pervy Kanal television channel.
Baisarov was wanted by authorities for a series of alleged crimes committed in the Caucasian republic of Chechnya, Itar-Tass news agency reported.
"Personnel from the Chechen police and from the department responsible for the fight against organised crime in Moscow, along with special forces, conducted the operation to arrest the suspect, but he resisted the police and was gunned down," said a police source cited by Itar-Tass.